Tribschen Manor, Manor house near Lake Lucerne, Switzerland

Tribschen is a cube-shaped manor house on a small motte on a headland projecting into Lake Lucerne. Its white facade has three storeys of windows flanked by green shutters, four on the front and two on the left side, under a steep red-brown tiled roof with a dormer near the top. A Swiss flag flies from a pole at the right corner.

The house dates from the 15th century, first belonging to the Herren zu Tripschen family and passing to the Am Rhyn family in the 1700s. Wagner rented the property from 1866 to 1872 and composed major works during his stay, an association that eventually led to its transformation into a museum.

The name comes from the Herren zu Tripschen family who once owned the property. Today visitors see this place mainly through the lens of Wagner's time here, when it served as his private retreat and creative workspace.

The manor sits on a headland projecting into Lake Lucerne in the Unterlachen-Tribschen quarter; the city acquired it with a 30,000 m² park in 1931. The museum opened two years later, in 1933. Allow time for both the house and the parkland, and note that the peacock house and the boathouse, probably built in the early 20th century, stand on the grounds.

On Christmas morning 1870, fifteen players performed the Siegfried Idyll on the villa's staircase as a birthday gift for Cosima Wagner; among the listeners was the 24-year-old Basel philology professor Friedrich Nietzsche. The peacock house built for Cosima's birds between 1866 and 1872 also stands on the grounds.